Experiments on Light is a series of photographic works exhibited at ‘Unruly Encounters’ - an exhibition of work by students on the PhD, MPhil and MRes programmes at the Royal College of Art, realised in collaboration with Charlotte Bonham-Carter.

This year marks 150 years since the death of the Mary Somerville (1780–1872). Her contribution to the invention of photography was significant, yet it has barely been recognised. These anthotypes were made as an act of retrieval for Somerville’s experiments with light.

Anthotypes are made with sustainable methods (involving the bleaching of dyes from vegetables and flowers with sunlight). This work looks to find new ways of thinking about the future and sustainability of photography.

“Perception is not simply embedded within and constrained by the surrounding world; it also contributes to the enactment of this surrounding world.”¹

‘Unruly Encounters’ takes its title from Francisco J. Varela’s 1995 essay ‘The Re-enchantment of the Concrete’. This text explores the creativity of cognition and the emergence of ideas from unruly conversations, which begin with corporeal sensations of the concrete world. This notion became a curatorial springboard to elicit the unexpected and unforeseeable through the juxtaposition of works within the idiosyncrasies of the exhibition spaces. The title of the exhibition also captures the spirit of the show, conveying the ambition of conjuring an intensive space of exchange, encounter and emergence in a non-didactic and non-hierarchical way.

Presented across Southwark Park Galleries Lake and Dilston Galleries, ‘Unruly Encounters’ encompasses the diverse and wide-ranging set of practices represented by artists from across the world all of whom are currently carrying out research at the Royal College of Art.

The relations between works encountered in the galleries set in motion possibilities for further thought, discussion and reflection. At the same time, this inspires a sense of riotous plurality, in which disruption, discord and dissonance live alongside kinship, affinity and proximity.